The use and abuse of prison around the world.

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The use and abuse of prison around the world.

Throughout the world, there are nearly 9 million people in prison, (1) with almost half of them in three countries: China, Russia and the United States. The rate at which countries make use of prison varies widely across the world and sometimes within regions. Prison rates are usually quoted per 100,000 of the total population and, on that basis, the average rate of imprisonment in the world is about 140. The country with the lowest rate of imprisonment in the world is the African nation Burkina Faso, at 23 (2,800 inmates for a population of 12.2 million people), while the country with the highest rate is the United States, at 715 (2.1 million inmates for 290 million people). Between these two extremes there is a wide spectrum. At the lower end, India, the largest democracy in the world, has a rate of only 29 per 100,000, Indonesia has 38 and Japan has 60. Also bel...

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